Wednesday, August 17, 2011

“If a man calls his wife to his bed and she refuses and he spends the night angry with her, the angels curse her until morning.”

Most Muslims have probably heard of this hadith... I don't want to make a big deal about how I feel about this hadith because that's just not the point of my post...

My husband accepts this as truth. So he believes that if a husband wants his wife sexually and she refuses and he is angry, angels will curse his wife all night. I'm not really an "obey your husband" type of wife as some might already figure and I don't accept these cursing angels as truth so I didn't really care if I said no to my husband. I'm thinking back on when things were difficult between us... Not much respect between the pair of us, lots of fighting, not too many lovey moments. I seriously didn't care if I said no; if I didn't want to, it was a big fat no.

I fell on this hadith yesterday and it reminded me of something my husband told me back in "those days". That he didn't allow himself to go to sleep angry at me even if I had just rejected him because he loved me too much and didn't want the angels to curse me.

7 Comentários:

I think that is very sweet! I had this same problem a few nights ago and mentioned that hadith and cried a lot about it. I think however that maybe you need to research more into the cultural context of that hadith, particularly the context in which it is acceptable to deny him, and the level of patience and delicate understanding he is required to have with you. And anyway, sometimes the only way we can connect with our partners is through sex when we are disconnected in every other way. It is such a great way to say "Hey, I don't like you right now but I love you and I want to be near you and relieve some tension between us."

But, I want to ask, without being rude, so please don't take this offensively, sister: what is your criteria for believing a hadith? Do you believe it is authentic if it has been rigorously authenticated, like Bukhari, Muslim, At-Tabarani, etc. were? Or do you just assume that if it doesn't fit with your perspective of Islam, it can't have been a real teaching of Prophet Muhammad, and thus a requirement for us to try to obey and believe?One of the interesting things about Islam is the definition of "disbelief" or "kufar". Technically, if a person says this or that is true and still choose to go against it, they are still under the umbrella of Islam. They are making sin, of course, but as long as they still believe something, they are still Muslim, and only Allah knows if they believe it. However, when a person says something which Allah has declared to be true is not, indeed, true, this is kufar. (I am not saying you are doing that, just explaining the difference).So Allah told us in Qur'an to obey the Prophet (prophets, as well. not just Muhammad (saws)) and the only way we have to know what he (they) taught is through the vehicle of authenticated hadiths. We can't just write off the sunnah because it does not fit our worldview. We should make our worldview fit the sunnah. I recommend a thorough investigation into the methods by which the Muslims throughout our history have authenticated hadiths, because it was no picnic and was not based on opinion or preference.

I've learned a lot since then and part of what I've learned is that as long as there's respect between both partners (which we had managed to lose back then), even if other things are disconnected as they are likely to become from time to time, sex is a way to reconnect and sort of have a bit of a start over so I agree with you there. Neither me or my husband were dealing with it the right way back then but we learned with experience!

I don't think I've ever seen you be rude Kaighla. :) I'm not sure how to answer though because I'm not the most knowledgeable person. I don't focus on put importance on hadith though and cannot accept using hadiths with little to no support in the Qur'an to make rulings. I'm not a Qur'an Aloner either though because I believe the hadiths can be useful to put context to the Qur'an and even to give insights to the way Prophet Muhammad lived and interacted with people - not because his every move should be imitated, but because he understood the message better than anyone.

I guess my overall belief about hadiths is that no matter how good the intentions and how much work it took to collect, it was not a divinely inspired process and it's flawed and full of errors. Even corruption I'm sure. Are there not authentic hadiths that contradict each other? And hadiths that are considered authentic by the main sources (Bukhari and Muslim) that don't even fulfill the rules to be authentic? And ones that go against the Qur'an itself (though there are convenient ways to change what seems to be an obvious meaning of a certain verse for it to not contradict). I really wish I had some specific verses and hadiths but you know, I am not very knowledgeable and not much time to search either... So I'm not proving anything here and of course I know that.

This is why I really do value scholars - I just wish current Muslim culture valued different interpretations and arguments and ways of thinking so that knowledge on Islamic matters could be as diverse and open as it once was. It seems right now that "unorthodox" scholars are not respected at all.

About disbelief, one of my points was how much of a big deal it is to attribute something to God that is not from God, though of course the opposite (declaring things that are from God as not being from God) must be a similar truth. Both things to stay far away from - it's a balancing act and probably difficult to manage.

“The entire deen is based on the chain of narrators(isnād), had it not been for the isnād then every person will narrate that; what he desires”. :)

I do not know if you know this or not, but the recitation of Quran itself that we have today is from chain of narrators :) Most of the world today follow the narrations of Imam Asim Kufi, though there are 7 other different narrations present. The whole thing is that we should believe the way through which we received the knowledge and deen we have today. :)

I was supposed to post the rights of the husbands on their wives on my blog today when I came across this hadith on the list. And I thought twice of putting it up. Until now I'm not too sure if I should put it up or not because something in me is at odds with it.

I'm not yet married so this shouldn't concern me that much. But, first and foremost, I'm a woman. So, this does concern me, especially that I do plan to get married someday. There's nothing particularly repulsive about it but I'm just not used to the idea being put forward like that.

Faizan: I guess I have more trust on the way the Qur'an was kept intact than the hadiths. I think the Qur'an was meant to be with the aid of Allah while the hadiths were not.

Aasiyah: You should still post what you have found. I look back on earlier posts of mine and it's no longer how I see things sometimes. I still like to have those old posts available. They were a beginning in my journey.

I'm not sure exactly how to explain away the rights of men over women because I really do believe we are 100% equal. I hope you will find a husband who sees you as an equal and respects you as one. That way it won't be so important for you to figure these questions out - you'll be free to take your entire life to figure it all out :)

It's when you have a husband demanding obedience that you need to figure out if it's necessary or not in Islam.